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All posts for the month December, 2011

For this exercise I had to study my camera manual to make sure I was able to change the white balance settings.

On my camera it is rather easy to change the settings as there is a secondary display on the rear of the camera as shown:-

Nikon D3s

It didn’t take long to find the section in the manual that I needed and to have all the settings I needed.

The following symbols are used to assist you:-

Symbols

The K stands for Kelvin. The Kelvin scale is named after the 1st Baron Kelvin , William Thomson. (1824–1907). He devised the scale which is a measurement of temperature. How does the scale represent the light as it changes during the day in relation to both natural and man-made light?

Kelvin Scale

If you take no notice of the white balance setting on your camera then you will only see the results when you see the images on your computer. There will be a blue, green or yellow cast to your images.

You can alter the white balance in post production , but I think it is more professional and will save you time if you check the settings before you take the images. Of course it means that you have to shoot raw images. This is where I have an advantage. I can shoot raw and jpeg at the same time, saving the images to two different compact flash cards.

Twin CF cards on a D3s

It was helpful for this exercise that I had the reading material sent to me a few months ago as there is not much bright sun-shine around as winter closes in. Some of these

images were taken months ago with this exercise in mind.

As I am trying to do before each exercise I do a little research on the subject, both on-line and in the library, Dorking’s new library looks as though it is nearly finished by the way. Two books caught my eye.

Understanding exposure, by Andy Stansfield

Book 1

Mr Stansfield talks at great length on this subject on page 38.

He gives his readers an excellent tip, shoot a few images in raw and “play” with them on your computer.

For the first part of the exercise I had to take four types of setting and shoot 16 images with the following white balance settings:-

Sunlight

Cloudy

Open shade on a sunny day

Auto

I then had to examine and compare each of the images to see which one I liked.

Here are my images for Sunlight.

sunlight-sunlight

sunlight-shade

sunlight-cloud

sunlight-auto

Here are my images for cloudy

cloudy sunlight

cloudy shade

cloudy cloudy

cloudy auto

Here are my images for open shade on a cloudy day

open shade-sun

open shade-shade

open shade-cloudy

open shade - auto

For my next set of images , using auto white balance , I went to a book shop to catch light from the outside falling on the books that were also illuminated by electric lights.

Images Auto setting

auto-sun

auto-shade

auto-cloudy

auto-auto

Well after looking at the above images which do I like best. It would be very easy to say that the auto setting has enabled the camera to take the best images, but I do not think that this is the case.

In the first set of images, of the Sea-King I like the image with the sunlight setting. I like cloudy setting in the second set of images and also in the third. However in the last set of images I do like the auto setting the three other settings are not to my liking.

In relation to the first image I did a further test in light room and produced the following image.

auto tone

Here is my chosen image , next to the computer selected image

Auto v sunlight WB

This last image made me really think of how much improvement there can be with a little work on the computer, the lower image looks washed out. What do you think ?

As I said earlier the importance of shooting raw files is brought home here, if I had only shot jpegs then I would not have been able to create the second image.

For the second part of this exercise I had to shoot three images using white balance settings of

Sunlight

Tungsten/incandescent

Auto

I was asked to take an image which contained both electric and natural light rather like the image from the bookshop above.

Auto WB

Tungsten WB

Sun WB

Images together

In the last three images I think that the Auto WB setting has captured the image more to my liking. This is especially true when you look at the house across the road.

Another interesting exercise, which has helped me get to know more of the features of my camera.

What are the main things that I can take from this exercise.

Read the course notes well in advance.

Again always have the camera with you, images that I had previously took came in handy.

Shoot RAW and Jpeg.

Have extra memory cards with you as shooting both formats takes up more space.

All is not lost if you forget the set the white balance, just leaving it on auto though is not to be recommended, unless you’re after a quick shot that would be better than no shot!

After taking a series of images, reading on-line reports and looking at other student’s work I set about completing this exercise.

I was asked to try to determine the dynamic range of my camera, a Nikon D3s.

Exposure as we all know is an important part of taking any image. It really is a compromise, we will have detail in some parts of the image but we may lose detail in other parts. The human eye has a greater dynamic range than a camera so the camera will try its best to capture the greatest dynamic range of an image it can.

With High Dynamic Range photography (HDR) it seems that we can have it all. We would need to take a series of images and blend them together.

People will think that HDR photography is a new method of taking images but as I found out it all started a long time ago and we have this man to thank for it, Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray (August 30, 1820 – July 30, 1884). He has been described as one of the most important French photographers of his generation. He is credited with the idea of taking to images to capture the detail in an image.

An example of one of his images

Le Gray

Here are the images that I took in order to try to work out the dynamic range of my camera. As I was having a little trouble with this exercise I set up the shot as close to the example given in the course notes.

Image 1

Image 1

Image 2

image 2

image 3

I was now asked to do the following, and this is where I had a great deal of difficulty.

“Now calculate the range between the two ends in f-stops. After two phone calls with my tutor I have decided that I present my finding like this.

dark area v noise

detail in card

Results

You can see that the exposure goes between -2.65 and +3.35 from my calculations this has given me a range of around 7 stops.

From my research this is lower that Nikon say for my camera, but I’m sure their tests are a lot more detailed.

This has been one of the hardest exercises that I have undertaken. I understand the theory but I could not get the results that I wanted. Further research on the OCA student blogs showed that

a few other students had the same problem.

Next topic – White balance and overall colour. Looking at the course work it looks like I am going to have a busy week.

For this assignment , my first of 2012, I had to produce a set of 6 colour images with a common theme.

Included in the 6 had to be at least one of each of the following

High Dynamic Range (High Contrast scene)

Low dynamic dance (flat scene)

Low light conditions requiring a high iso

Mixed lighting conditions

I decided that our holiday in the Lake District would enable me to hopefully capture the images that I wanted. The weather was very poor with rain most days. I had waterproof kit and my camera is weather sealed so I knew this part of the assignment would be fine. I also took along a smaller camera so I could take some comparison images.

would be ok.

Here are the images that I have chosen for High Contrast.

Image 1.

High Contrast 1

The above image was taken in a woodland next to lake Windermere. Although there are no really bright colours there is a contrast between the trunk, the brown leaves and the trees in the background. The light was poor due to the canopy of trees overhead and it was raining. Spot metering on the fallen trunk assisted me in taking the shot.

High Contrast 2

The rain was tipping down as I took this shot. In the background is the copper colour tree against the barn, this stands out against the stone wall and the green trees. I took up a position so that the road sign , with its black and white letters, stood out against the white cloudy sky. An initial auto white balance was changed to cloudy. I have read that you should not have too much white in the corners of an image but I did not want to remove it. I also like the contrast between the black and white pole and the green grass.

High Contrast 3

I had spent a day looking for an image which contained an amount of red. The first image I took was a close-up of the red container and the farm-house wall (bottom right), it was ok but then the red tractor appeared and the shot changed, I thought about the reds at the bottom of the images , going through the green fields and up to the grey mountainside ending in the clouds.

I needed a fast shutter speed for this image as the wind was so strong I could not stand still long enough to take the shot. Again cloudy white balance used.

High Contrast 4

After the shot of the red container against the white cottage wall and the black and white sigh against the green field I wanted to see if I could get a further image of white and green. I sat in a field and just waited for these sheep to walk over. I really wanted three for balance but I couldn’t attract another to join the two above.

High Contrast 5

The above image was taken hand-held as I sat on the side of the river getting soaked. I wanted to contrast the white water with the black rocks.The trees and moss-covered bank above the waterfall contrast each other.

These are the images that I have chosen for Low Contrast

Low Contrast 1

Boats on lake Windermere. The weather was terrible for a second day. The sky was grey and so was the water. I positioned myself so that I kept a section of rock in the bottom of the image so just a hint of green could be seen. The boats break up the line between the water and the trees.

Low Contrast 2

A further shot taken later in the day as the clouds came down. There is very little colour in this image. The first shot I took looked poor after I reviewed it, so it moved backwards and used the branches of the tree to frame the image in the shot. I think that it just breaks up the image.

Low Contrast 3

A further shot of the lake this time with some swans. Again I kept the green in on the bottom right in my first shot I zoomed in on the birds. The white of the birds really stands out against the water and the sky. The trees in the background have lost all of their colour. The sky is white as the cloud level dropped. I will leave it to other to say if the green (bottom right ) should be removed. This time I got three birds!

Low Contrast 4

I liked the look of this section of stone wall. There are some small green patches but the overall effect is of a flat scene. Even the small section of grass (bottom Left) is not very green so the eye is not distracted.

Here are the images I have chosen for Low Light-High ISO

High Iso

Taken late at night with the iso set to 10,000. The light from the window helped a little bit but did not illuminate the side of the cottage. I used spot metering to allow the image not to be over exposed. But with the iso comes noise. I was going to take an image with the camera on a tripod but this would of course reduced the noise as I could have increased the time using a lower iso.

High ISO

This image was taken as the sun was going down. The image looked like it was taken in daylight , I reduced the iso and put the camera on a tripod. The quality is better but I still wanted to keep the noise in the image.

The image below shows two snaps shots taken from each of the above images. It clearly shows the noise in the images which is a result of shooting with a of High ISO

Effect of High ISO on Image Quality

I chose this image for Mixed Lighting

Mixed Lighting

The above image caused me great difficulty. The lights on the other side of the lake, a light from a cottage behind me and I needed a torch not only to focus but to light up the hedge to the left of the gate. The camera was placed on a tripod with a 20 second exposure, using the self timer to avoid shake.

Here are some of my previous attempt at capturing the shot.

First Attempt

Second attempt

Third attempt

Looking at the above three images I was quite pleased with my finished image.

I had been asked to produce a set of images that had an example of the following :-

As the course notes say this is a rather important topic. As I have gained experience in taking different images I have seen the problems that can arise if you do not take care when you are shooting.

It does not matter what camera you have better more expensive cameras do not take better quality images on their own. Of course controlling noise and some other things may be easier with a more expensive piece of kit and it will probably last longer but in the end the photographer has a lot to do with the quality of the final print.

What does the term “optimise” mean? Get the most out of something, to make perfect or to make complete. These are phrases that may go some way to describe optimise.

Here again the benefits of shooting raw may come to light. Although as we saw in the last exercise, the difference may not be great, but at least with the detailed information that the raw files hold available for me to change then I have a better chance to “optimise” my images.

With a viewing screen on the back of the camera you are given an indication of what your image may be like. Later when looking at the computer screen you get a further chance to see what the image MAY look like. The important word here is MAY. How many times have I looked at the image on the screen and thought that the printed image, in my hand, looks nothing like it, a few times I can tell you.

So this takes us back to lesson 1- Work flow. Having your equipment set up so that you take the best image possible each time and make sure that your computer screen is calibrated and in a good position for you to view the images.

I was asked to look at an image, shot in both jpeg and raw and make corrections to the following:-

Contrast

brightness

Colour cast

black and whites ensure they are not tinged with colour.

The image I have chosen has a number of contrasting colours which should help me see the improvements.

Image-Jpeg

Jpeg image before and after

Image Raw

Raw image before and after

In the jpeg image I can not see that much difference even after I have made the adjustments. There is a different tone to the orange buoys and the sea and sky look lighter. Looking at the Raw images I can see a greater difference.The sky, the green trees, the sea, the boat, especially the white and blue paint.

Areas of improvement

I liked working on this exercise. Maybe this is a subject that I have not taken as much notice of as I should have. It is easier in Lightroom rather than Photoshop to alter the images as you have both of the images next to each other.

Conclusion

Take the best image to can at the time in Raw if you can. (projects the value of Raw and Digital Image qualities)

Have your kit in working order ie. the screen and camera settings. (project-work flow)

Edit your images but do not throw any away until you are happy with the final images. (project-Editing)

Over the Christmas and New Year period I was in the Lake District taking some images for my next Assignment. Whilst I was there I read above a famous photographer who had died, Eve Arnold:-

She was 99 years old and died in the UK. I decided to look at some of her images as every report I read about her described her as a legend. She was born in the USA in 1912 and moved to London in the 60’s. She was the first woman member of the Magnum agency in 1957.

Her portraits included the Queen, Marlene Dietrich and Malcolm X, and the locations for her photo features included China, Russia, Afghanistan, South Africa and South America.

Here are just a couple of her images that I found that I liked.

Both of the above images are copyright of Eve Arnold.

Apparently she started taking images of Marilyn Monroe before she was famous and continued to take images of her till she died.

In what was at the time a very male dominated industry she appears to stand out as a great photographer.

I am off work at the moment so I am spending a lot more time taking pictures and working through my course work. I am having difficulty with one section so I contacted my tutor, he will hopefully be able to sort me out.

I received a letter from the OCA today telling me that I had passed my first course with a mark of 60 (60-69-work of a class 2:1 standard). I have to say that I am over the moon. There is also some advice from the markers which is a great help.

Well after two posts on noise it was time to set about taking the images for the exercise. The weather was very bad so for once I could take the images in the house.

Equipment used

Nikon D3s

Nikon 24-70 2.8 lens

Tripod

no other lighting apart from day-light.

I took two sets of images, the first set consisted of a white wall and door. The second set was of a chair, a bookcase and a red wall to see if the effects were greater with more colour in the shot.

ISO200

ISO400

ISO2000

ISO6400

ISO12800

Screen shots showing detail

Screen Shot ISO200

Screen Shot ISO12800

And now for a set of images with a large percentage of white in the shot

ISO200

ISO400

ISO800

ISO6400

ISO102000

Again screen shots showing detail

Screen Shot iso200

ISO102000

I think that the results are very interesting.

There is a greater difference in the white images on the right. But are all the images usable? It may be the case that this is the only image that you could get, looking at the image below taken by a photographer in London, would it matter if there was some noise? I’ll let you make up your mind?